How to Resolve the "No Font Name" Issue When Importing Fonts into R Using Extrafont

How can I resolve the No Font Name issue when importing fonts into R using extrafont?

As it was mentioned by @Moritz Schwarz, the problem is traced to Rttf2pt1.

According to a solution proposed here, downgrading it to 1.3.8 will fix the problem:

library(extrafont)
library(remotes)
remotes::install_version("Rttf2pt1", version = "1.3.8")
extrafont::font_import()

Downloading Fonts in R: 'No fontName. Skipping'

Using the following code worked when I downloaded Rtools40.

library(extrafont)

library(remotes)

remotes::install_version("Rttf2pt1", version = "1.3.8")

extrafont::font_import()

I cannot import fonts using font_import

Really check the file name

tl;dr Windows is case-insensitive, but R's grepl is not, and import_font passes the pattern argument grepl

Use:

extrafont::font_import(pattern="arial.ttf", prompt=FALSE) 

Why? Because Windows returns "arial.ttf" as the file name.

File Explorer doesn't show font file names

The pattern "Arial.ttf" would match C:\Windows\Fonts\Arial.ttf. However on my test system the file is just C:\Windows\Fonts\Arial without an extension. This is what you see when looking at the directory using File Explorer. File Explorer is not showing you the file names as illustrated below.

Look for font file with R or powershell

The output of the file name via any of these methods is arial.ttf.

Using powershell

ls C:\Windows\Fonts | findstr -i arial
gci -Path "C:\Windows\Fonts" -Recurse -File -Filter "arial.ttf"
gci -Path "C:\Windows\Fonts" -Recurse -File -Filter "Arial.ttf"

all show the filename arial.ttf.

Using R

# font_import lists files using this function
list.files("C:/Windows/Fonts", pattern="\\.ttf") # shows arial.ttf

file.exists("C:/Windows/Fonts/arial.ttf") # TRUE
file.exists("C:/Windows/Fonts/Arial.ttf") # TRUE b/c Windows is case-insensitive

How font_import uses pattern argument

Looking into how font_import uses the pattern supplied:

extrafont::font_import # prints the source
#function (paths = NULL, recursive = TRUE, prompt = TRUE, pattern = NULL) 
#{
#...
#    ttf_import(paths, recursive, pattern)
#}

extrafont:::ttf_import # print the source
#function (paths = NULL, recursive = TRUE, pattern = NULL) 
#{
#    if (is.null(paths)) 
#        paths <- ttf_find_default_path()
#    ttfiles <- normalizePath(list.files(paths, pattern = "\\.ttf$", 
#        full.names = TRUE, recursive = recursive, ignore.case = TRUE))
#    if (!is.null(pattern)) {
#        matchfiles <- grepl(pattern, basename(ttfiles))
#        ttfiles <- ttfiles[matchfiles]
#    }
#...
#}

The line where the supplied pattern gets used is in a call to grepl

matchfiles <- grepl(pattern, basename(ttfiles))

Cannot import fonts into R

The best solution to my knowledge is showtext and sysfonts. First, add the font to the session:

# directly from google fonts
sysfonts::font_add_google("Roboto Condensed")
# or add an arbitrary font with
sysfonts::font_add("Roboto Condensed", regular = "RobotoCondensed-Regular.ttf")

Once this is done, simply load showtext and run showtext_auto() once to activate it (you need to repeat add_font* and showtext_auto every session):

library(ggplot2)
library(showtext)

showtext_auto()
ggplot(mtcars, aes(mpg, wt)) +
  geom_point() +
  labs(x="Fuel efficiency (mpg)", y="Weight (tons)",
       title="Seminal ggplot2 scatterplot example",
       subtitle="A plot that is only useful for demonstration purposes",
       caption="Brought to you by the letter 'g'") + 
  hrbrthemes::theme_ipsum_rc()

^{Created on 2022-03-22 by the reprex package (v2.0.1)}

You can also try to make the font available permanently. But it seems to be hit and miss. Theoretically, you need to install the font into C:\Windows\Fonts, which you can do by 1) unzip the fonts, 2) right click and "install for all users". If you install the fonts in a different way, there is a good chance Windows will only put a link into C:\Windows\Fonts, which R can't deal with.

You can check available fonts with:

fonts_df <- sysfonts::font_files()
View(fonts_df)

This works for most fonts in my experience but with Roboto, I still had no luck for some reason. add_font* seems to be the best way to go for now.

How to solve the error status 5 in extrafont?

I suspect this is related to issues with Rttf2pt1 (upon which extrafont depends) as described here and here. Suggested solution which worked for me is to downgrade Rttf2pt1 as below:

remove.packages("Rttf2pt1")   
remotes::install_version("Rttf2pt1", version = "1.3.8") 

Adding Fonts to R using extrafont or showtext libraries (on Mac via FontBook)

In Font Book > Preferences, by switching the preference of the fonts from User to Computer, it ensures that the fonts install into the fonts folder. This solved my problem.

R package extrafont::font_import() not finishing

The font_import function gives a prompt on the console that needs to be answered with y or n. Hence, it was waiting for a response, and nothing happened.

(Posting answer since OP cannot post themselves.)

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